


frequency

by thisissirius



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Demons, M/M, Missing Persons, Supernatural Elements, The Spirit Box
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-23
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2019-05-10 12:11:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14736734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisissirius/pseuds/thisissirius
Summary: The spirit box, the bane of Shane’s life, has become his most trusted weapon.Shane, it spits.Eenie meanie. There will be incoherent warbling because it’s still a piece of shit, but every now and then he gets,catch Ryan by his





	frequency

**Author's Note:**

> yet again. i have no excuses. written for an anon on tumblr who wanted
> 
>  
> 
> _They can't do anything to me. I have nothing left._
> 
>  
> 
> for Shane and Ryan. 
> 
> So here I am.

Shane hates the irony; the sceptic becomes the believer, becomes the advocate.

Shane’s not entirely sure he can call what the show has become carrying on, can’t even be sure why people are still watching. They must find something, for Buzzfeed to keep piling money into his bank account, sending him and TJ out to location after location to confirm or deny sightings.

Shane thinks he would have stopped thirty-three locations back if he wasn’t desperate. He is, so he goes, drags TJ into asylums, houses, and caverns. Stares into the camera, jaw clenched, snarling insults and threats into the darkness.

Sometimes he gets an answer. The spirit box, the bane of Shane’s life, has become his most trusted weapon.  _Shane_ , it spits.  _Eenie meanie._  There will be incoherent warbling because it’s still a piece of shit, but every now and then he gets,  _catch Ryan by his_

and breaks the spirit box against the wall.

“Shane,” TJ says, voice pitched low. 

They rarely talk on location. Shane’s preoccupied with searching out every morsel of supernatural energy, and TJ keeps the camera rolling. Neither of them acknowledges Shane’s recklessness, his desperation.

“I’ll get another one.” Buzzfeed will drop it into his lap without a complaint. His behaviour gets a pass as long as the hits keep coming. Shane resents it, in the moments he lets himself think about, but it’s not enough to keep him from stopping. Filming every house, every spirit box snarl, every blur on camera means that people can’t  _forget_.

State to state and Shane never knows where he is from one day to the next. He times his life in locations, in murmured suggestions from TJ, in doors that close by themselves. Motels all blend into one, uncomfortable beds that he can’t get enough sleep in, TVs that seem to focus on the same thing.

(Motels never used to be a problem.

Ryan prodded and poked and ended up splayed on top of Shane, his face smashed into Shane’s neck, snoring softly in Shane’s ear. 

Shane would curl his fingers around Ryan’s shoulders, close his eyes, and hold on for dear life.)

 _Ghosts are real_ , Shane thinks wryly, staring at the newscaster’s pallid face, the fear reflected back through the TV screen.  _Demons walk the Earth_.

Walk is a stretch. Lurk. Taunt.  _Attack_.

On the other bed, TJ is snoring, hand thrown over his face. He goes home from time to time, catching up with family and friends, and he’s due to fly out in three days. Shane can’t remember the last time he spoke to his mother, let alone saw her face to face. His brother calls sometimes, pleading with Shane to come home, to give it up, to save himself.

Shane can’t; there’s guilt, of course there is, but there’s something else too, something he’s afraid to put a name to.

“Shane.” TJ’s got one eye cracked open, mouth downturned into a frown. “Get some sleep.”

“Sure,” Shane replies, affably. They both know he’s lying. 

Shane turns off the TV, rolls onto his side, back to TJ. He unlocks his phone, heart lurches at the photo there.  _Berryboys_  he thinks.  _Ghoulfriends. Christ._

Closing his eyes, Shane curls a fist around his phone, grits his teeth, and fights off the wave of nausea that rises. He needs to change his background, stop feeling like this, but every time he tries -

They try and cram in as many locations as they can in each city. Asylum, cavern. Then graveyard. Shane is as respectful as he can be amongst the headstones, for the ones that really are trying to save themselves. Others, the ones that linger, sending a shiver up his spine, he antagonises them.

His threats before,  _punch me_ and  _rip out my insides_  and  _kill me,_ are his go-to favourites, though he knows they don’t take those seriously.

“I’ll find you,” he says instead, voice pitched high and angry. “I’ll find you and I’ll destroy you.”

One day, Shane will find it. He’ll find that dark oppressive presence and he’ll rend it from whatever hellhole it came from.

“Shane,” TJ warns. 

Shane shrugs him off, moves between headstones with little regard for his destination. He has another spirit box, courtesy of his employers, and turns it on. It’s not as eerie as it should be;  Shane’s had a lot of practice acclimatising to dark and haunting locations. Despite the cameras, the spirit box, Shane has to rely on his own senses, his own memories. Those, he knows, he has no problem with.

(”Shit, Shane,” Ryan wheezed, laughing, his fingers curled around his phone.

Shane opened his mouth to say something scathing when the darkness had curled around Ryan’s shoulder, Ryan’s eyes big and round and  _scared_.)

“Cut me, make me _bleed,_ ” Shane yells into the darkness, satisfied when there’s a sting against his skin, a rasp of breath in his ear. It isn’t the same, doesn’t make the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. “Fuck.”

TJ rests his camera on the dirt, gestures for Shane to come to him.

Shane’s bleeding, a cut just under his eye, and he lets TJ fuss, knows it’s good the cameras. They like it when there’s action, when Shane’s taunts give rise to evidence.

“Why do you let ‘em do it?” TJ sighs, taking a step back and putting distance between them. “People would watch anyway.”

“It’s not like they can do anything to me,” Shane says, hands curling into fists by his sides. “I have nothing left.”

The look TJ gives him is indecipherable. “He wouldn’t want this for you, Shane.”

It’s not the first time Shane’s heard it. He’s told himself enough times, quiet moments that he doesn’t want to analyse too much. It bites, though, every single time. “Let him tell me himself.”

 _He can’t_ , TJ doesn’t say. Shane hears it anyway. 

(Red eyes, the hairs on the back of Shane’s neck standing on end, and Ryan terrified, shadows sliding over his skin like liquid. 

Shane watched the footage again and again and again and

Ryan slowly disappeared, dissipating into the shadows as the house coalesced around him. 

Shane was standing alone in the kitchen, the evidence they’d always sought in his hands, but at the cost of  _what_  )

 _Come get_ ,  _Shane_ , the spirit box taunts.  _He’s waiting for_

“You bastard,” Shane snaps, wonders if he can crush the spirit box between his fingers. This is why he can’t go home, why he can’t just stop doing this. Futile, maybe. Damaging, probably. 

( _The show wouldn’t continue without you,_ Ryan said 

 _I’d do it without you,_ Shane told him.)

One day Shane will find it, the sensation of darkness that lingers, the full-bodied shiver, the recognition. Shane will find it and he’ll find  _Ryan_. 

TJ knows. Buzzfeed knows. The viewers know. Shane doesn’t care, doesn’t acknowledge it, cuts off his parents and brother whenever they bring it up. They don’t understand, they can’t. 

Shane barely understands, just knows that he taunted, he bullied, he mocked. 

Ryan paid. Ryan’s still paying. 

His family, his friends, his life. 

“I’ll find him,” Shane promises, speaking down at the spirit box, anger blossoming in his chest. “I’ll save him.”

It’s not an empty promise. 

(”I love you,” Ryan says, pressing a kiss to Shane’s jaw.

 _I love you too,_ Shane never replies.)

**Author's Note:**

> if you wish to, find me on [tumblr](http://thisissirius.tumblr.com/tagged/buzzfeed%20unsolved). link takes you to my buzzfeed tag :)


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